


Eye of the Beholder

by gloriouswhisperstyphoon



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: F/M, that no one needed, the makeup tutorial fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2018-06-16
Packaged: 2019-05-24 07:32:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14950316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloriouswhisperstyphoon/pseuds/gloriouswhisperstyphoon
Summary: "Don't move," Leia said, and hefted her tweezers.Otherwise known as: The makeup tutorial fic that no one needed.





	Eye of the Beholder

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TinCanTelephone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TinCanTelephone/gifts).



“Leia. I need help.”

Leia flicked her eyes up to the roommate standing in her door with a nigh on desperate look on her face, her eyeliner so off kilter that she looked like a confused raccoon. 

Oh gods. But she did need help.

“What the heck, Jyn? Did you lose a fight with an eyeliner pen or something?”

Jyn ground her teeth, clearly reluctant to tell Leia what had actually happened. 

“You know that party we have tonight? I was trying to do my makeup for it.”

Another series of mumbled words came out, some of which sounded like “Want to seduce Cassian”. 

Leia nodded noncommittally before the words sank in. 

“WAIT, WHAT?”

Jyn shuffled her feet slightly on the ground, uncharacteristically shy, before raising her chin. “I wanted to seduce Cassian. You going to help me or not?”

\---

10 minutes later, Jyn was situated in Leia’s favoured makeup chair in front of the huge windows with the brilliant rays of the setting sun. Jyn was eyeing all the pastes and powders and brushes and tools warily.

“What the hell is all this shit, Leia? Do we actually need this much stuff?”

Leia fixed on her the death glare that had become the bane of the entire Law Faculty and their university's debate club. 

Jyn quieted very quickly. 

“First question. Do you want to actually seduce him or just raise the notion of it?”

She bit her tongue, clearly thinking about it. Her voice was uncertain when she replied, “Maybe just raise the notion of it?”

Leia’s grin grew wider and her eyes were a little softer, before she realised what situation she was in and pulled herself taller. Had to be the perfect teacher, evidently. 

“Ok, my young child. First lesson of makeup is always: natural light is the best light. Got that?”

She gave a slow nod in return. On seeing that, Leia reached onto the table to grab a hank of - was that embroidery thread? What even?

She raised a hand slowly as though she were a misbehaving school student again and not a mostly-functioning and self-sufficient adult. 

“Ummm, Leia, is that thread?”

Leia gave her a diabolical grin in return. Bad sign. Every time she'd seen that smile, it tended to end badly for the person on the other end, generally Han. 

“Second rule of makeup: Your brows can always be better. Sit your pretty little butt down and try not to scream too much. And don’t move.”

Open-mouthed confusion was followed by a silent scream. 

\--

Jyn’s face ached. There was no other way to describe it. She hurt in places she didn't realise it was possible to hurt. And somehow, magically, they still weren’t finished. 

She’d pointed out to Leia that she looked incredibly angry with her newly plucked and poked eyebrows, to which she got a grumpy snort. 

“I make you look beautiful for a seduction and this is the thanks I get? Your brows before made you look like a confused pokemon. Now you look like a beautiful goddess.”

She looked at Leia, her face full of hope.

“Does that mean we’re done?”

Leia raised a single, perfectly filled in brow. 

Jyn sank back into the chair. Shit. 

\--

The next torture device: a single bottle of indeterminate origin and an almost offensively pink egg-shaped sponge.

“This is foundation. It goes on first.”

Jyn moved to pour a healthy amount onto the sponge, before Leia grabbed the bottle back out of her hand. 

“Not that much! Keep the freckles visible! You want Cassian to know it’s you, but just a more beautiful version. Boy isn’t going to know what hit him.”

Jyn turned around to look Leia straight in the face.

“You really think this harebrained idea actually has a chance?”

Leia snorted. 

“Ever seen Cassian when you walk into a room? He keeps staring at you like you’re a goddamn artwork he might never see again. And, every time you bring a date to places, even Luke gets scared by the death glares he sends their way - and my idiot brother is a golden retriever in human form.”

She settled in as Leia started applying concealer (as Leia said: smells like kid’s paint, but I guarantee, raccoon eyes are not fashionable), and patting it into the skin around her face and neck, mulling on that a moment. 

“You sure I’ve got a -”

The question was cut off with a hard blow with the sponge to Jyn’s neck, making her cough and her eyes water alarmingly. Leia glared at her, brandishing the sponge almost like a weapon. 

“Shut up. If you start crying and wreck that makeup, I’m killing you and hiding the body. And besides, if he doesn’t fall at your feet at the end of this, I’ll kill him myself. Close your eyes.”

Leia started pressing a powder into Jyn’s skin, almost making her cough and her eyes water alarmingly as she dusted away what she’d just applied. 

“Suck in your cheeks as much as you can.”

Jyn did so, conspicuously avoiding the sight of herself in the mirror, absolutely positive that she’d be looking like an absolute fool the whole time. In the meantime, Leia had started to apply a brown powder in a straight line in the hollows of her cheeks, before going over the line she had just created with a sponge.

“Important makeup tip! Everything can be fixed with added blending!” Leia waggled the little pink sponge in front of Jyn’s face as though that were supposed to do anything.

A few palettes were swiftly packed away back into their rightful places on Leia’s shelves before Jyn could even react. 

“You don’t need sparkles to shine.”

She looked over at her friend - had she somehow inhaled a Hallmark card from the dust cloud that the makeup had produced?

Leia sighed. “Also, the glittery sparkles get everywhere if you make out with someone.” A quick suggestive waggle of her eyebrows. Jyn resisted the urge to slam her newly made up face into her hands. 

A handful of pencils in Leia’s hands appeared along with a little smirk that she didn’t even bother to hide - now THESE, Jyn knew, were the ultimate torture devices. The shortest path from “reasonable” to “drunken raccoon”. 

“Blink as much as you can - this is easier done when you’ve got your eyes open. And if you blink while I’m doing this, it’ll be deeply unpleasant for us both. And Mr Q-Tip on the table there.”

“Isn’t this a classic torture technique, Leia?”

Leia ignored her and came closer with the pencils. 

“Rule of eye makeup. Winged eyeliner looks sleek and clean, smudgy smokey eyes look beautiful and seductive. We want seductive for you tonight. Now look up.”

A series of progressively smaller makeup brushes suddenly came into her line of vision and Jyn tried to jerk away, but Leia’s hand held her head tight.  
Leia was murmuring softly, explaining the entire process. “Just putting a little colour into the lower lash line to bring out the colour of your eyes. Your eyes are beautiful, we want Cassian to notice the hell out of them.”

She pulled back to admire her handiwork after a healthy spray of something (as Leia had said: “we want this to be able to survive the nuclear apocalypse. Or at least, sex) and gave a little hand mirror to do the same. But by the gods, Leia was good at this. Whatever she’d done to her face, she looked beautiful, her eyes and her cheeks and the colour in them. Leia was right - If Cassian didn’t notice her after this, he’d be dead in a ditch by dawn.

When she looked up at Leia, there was nothing but a smirk resting on her face. “What do you think? Am I good or am I good?” She quickly checked the clock on the wall and slammed a small thing of makeup wipes into Jyn’s unresisting hands, for later, apparently. “Now let’s get you changed into something fancy and I’ll call the uber for you. Something about this tells me that you won’t be coming back here tonight.”

\---

Jyn stood at the edge of the dance floor, resisting the urge to fiddle with either her drink coaster, her hair or rubbing her eyes. Where the hell was he?

Oh there he was, standing in the doorway. And she knew he’d seen her, standing at the bar because his eyes darkened and he ran a hand over the back of his neck (nerves? She’d never seen that before in Cassian). 

She walked up to him (very, very slowly in the stupid shoes Leia had insisted she wear) and looked him dead in the eye.

“Hey there, Cassian. Looks like someone was late getting here.”

His eyes widened a touch as he watched Jyn take a slow sip of her drink, dragging this entire situation out a little longer, watching his gaze take in the changes in her appearance. 

She grinned a little wider, as cat-like as Leia had told her to, the drink and the makeup and the very angry pep talk from Leia giving her that extra boost in confidence. “Got an answer for me there? Want to dance.”

His voice was husky when he leaned down to whisper in her ear. “Always.”

**Author's Note:**

> many thanks to shuofthewind and melanoradrood for helping me fix this stupid thing.
> 
> happy early birthday to TinCanTelephone on AO3. I hope you're proud of this.


End file.
